Marisa spoke on Farming Today this morning about the need to provide small infrastructure to support local rural economies, in particular small abattoirs to reduce live transport of animals and enable farmers to fear pasture fed animals and process locally. Farming Today were interested in the Minister's commitment to provide funding which is a campaign Marisa drove following her running a Parliamentary Inquiry into the topic of small abattoirs which resulted in the report The Future of Small abattoirs which she wrote setting out key recommendations for Government. Currently many animals are being transported across the country which is bad for welfare and costs farmers so much that it can make their businesses unprofitable.
Providing the right local infrastructure is really important for local rural communities and getting seed funding can help bring those communities and businesses in them together to then ensure further investment and sustainability around using that infrastructure.
You can listen to the BBC programme here - Marisa comes on at 09.50
